


Settlement

by Lib_bee



Series: Kings & Queens | Contributing Factors [1]
Category: From Dusk Till Dawn (1996), From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series
Genre: Brotherly Love, Bubble Bath, Healing, Jealousy, Misunderstandings, Older Man/Younger Woman, Slight Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-13
Updated: 2017-03-13
Packaged: 2018-10-04 03:59:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10267709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lib_bee/pseuds/Lib_bee
Summary: It's time to wash away the sins of the past and start healing.





	

Burnt orange sunlight hit desert sand as the darkness of night fought for dominance on the horizon. In the light of the moon, just barely visible in the shadow of the fading sun, a woman sat on the run down steps of a dilapidated building in a burnt out ghost town contemplating where to start rebuilding her life.  
  
In theory, she could just hot wire a car like Seth taught her, maybe just start walking, and head in any direction until something felt right.  
  
Ideally, her boys would return from wherever they had went, pick her up, and take her with them. Keep her safe. Keep her with them.  
  
In reality, she knew they were coming back to take her wherever she wanted to go, and that they hoped it was far from where they could hurt her, but close enough to keep her-their version of-safe.  
  
If there was anything Kate knew better than the Gecko's, it was what motivated them, and the actions they would most likely take. It would be nice to say that knowledge was hard won by trial, error, and weeks of getting to know them personally, but that wasn't true.   
  
A queen of hell with the power to rip into souls was the true culprit of her intimate understanding.

She knew Seth was the real mastermind of their life, he made the plans while Richie dissected the details and perfected them. She knew Richie was scared of Seth leaving him behind for good. She knew they both loved her by the way her name was protected in the center of their being.

  
Seth had iron bars of light wrapped tight around her name, fierce love, and hope shining through the darkest places in his being to keep him from falling apart.  
  
Richie on the other hand kept her wrapped in his darkness, hidden even from himself, in the true fear that he would hurt her and not be able to get her back.  
  
They were her own personal yin and yang. One man made from the darkness around him housing her in what light he had to give, while the other shrouded her in darkness to protect her from the imperfect purity that marred him.   
  
It killed her to know their truest fears included her in any way. She was only a woman after all, no better than them in her eye's. She loved them pure and simple. Didn't bother her anymore that they had kidnapped her and inadvertently gotten her family killed. Didn't need to consider her life any other way than how it was.  
  
Kathryn Marie Fuller had never been the perfect preachers daughter. True that she hadn't tainted the purity in her soul, but she was not as innocent in body and mind as everyone thought.  
  
Purity and innocence were not the same thing. At least not in her mind anymore.  
  
***  
  
Her arms itched as she heard the sound of a beat up vehicle coming her way. She didn't need to look up to know her boys were back. She had felt them coming before she heard them.   
  
She watched as Seth leaned out the window, his split lip on display. "Need a ride?"  
  
Standing from the steps she walked over to him watching as he tilted his head to examine her as she leaned in the window to make eye contact with both of the brothers. "I'm not leaving you." Kate gave both her boys a hard stare. "Either of you, so don't ask me where I want to go."  
  
Richie leaned over the console into Seth's space. "You're sure?"  
  
"Yes, now take me home." She pretended not to see Seth smile as she hopped in the back gently, aware that her arms still stung. "I'm hungry so I hope there's food."  
  
She caught his dark eye's in the rear-view mirror as she settled in the back. "Anything you want princess."  
  
As he put the truck in gear she looked out the window admiring the feeling of being safe engulfing her and sighed. "I want food, a hot bubbly bath, and to steal one of your beds so I can actually sleep."   
  
"Done. You can have Seth's bed it's real comfortable." Richie spilled.  
  
Rolling eye's met hers in the mirror again. "What he really means is he doesn't want you sleeping in the last place he fed." A shrug. "You can have my bed. Not like we haven't shared before."  
  
She let her eye's close as she rested her head against the window, true sleep creeping up as she spoke. "We need to talk after I catch up on some sleep."  
  
Neither Richie or Seth batted an eyelash at her command, knowing it wasn't a request, and let her slip into a hopefully healing sleep.  
  
***  
  
First thing Kate noticed as she awoke was the full body ache attacking her body, and she laid still as she got use to the feeling. The second thing she noticed was that she had been stripped down and stitched up. All in all she came to the conclusion that this was a good thing as she didn't feel so restricted by the leather getup she had on before. Last thing she noticed was the zing up her spine that told her she was alone in this room with a culebra.  
  
"Richie?" She asked as she sat up, holding the sheet to her naked chest. He seemed to melt from the shadows of the room and came to the foot of the bed, head tilted, eyebrows raised in askance. "Where's Seth?"  
  
Just as he opened his mouth to answer a door to his right opened and Seth walked out with a towel around his hips. Looking up when he had his towel secured in a knot as steam billowed behind him and  condensation settled on his skin to see Kate awake.  
  
"Hey, princess." His whole body seemed to sag in relief and she noticed Richie smiling genuinely off to the side.  
  
"Hey, Clyde." She raised a brow and shifted her loosened grip on the sheet. "Any reason as to why I'm naked in a room with a culebra and a naked man?"  
  
Kate couldn't contain her humor as both men swung their eye's into contact to glare at each other. Some kind of silent argument going on before Seth caved to answer and Richie headed out the door on his left, mumbling about getting her some food.  
  
She watched unashamed as Seth went to his closet and stepped inside switching on a light casting his shadow as it dropped the towel and pulled pants on.  
  
"You were completely out of it when we got here, so Richie carried you in. We didn't think you'd want to sleep covered in dirt and blood so we hopped in the shower, fully clothed mind you, and got you undressed and clean." He came to the foot of the bed in sweats with his arms folded across his still naked chest. "By the time we had you stripped and cleaned you started bleeding again so I made Richie get the shit to stitch you up."  
  
She waited as he stared. "I'm still naked though."  
  
He ran a hand through his hair and chuckled. " I was actually going to find you something of ours to put on once I got done rinsing your blood back off of me, but you woke up a bit sooner than I thought you would."  
  
She tilted her own head. "I still want a bubble bath and to talk."  
  
Seth sighed while rubbing his hand across his face. " You can have one if Richie can find some of that foaming shit, cause I don't have any."  
  
They both stopped and paused as the door opened back up with Richie holding a tray out to place on the bed in front of her. "We can talk while your relaxing in a bath." He made a point of gesturing to the bottle of liquid in the corner of the tray. "I hope that's fine cause its all I could scrounge up from the girls around here."  
  
Seth made a look as if fixing to explode, but before he could say anything, Kate interrupted as she took a bite of her sandwich. " That's cool."  
  
As she continues to consume the fruit and juice Richie gave her, Seth sighed once again grabbing the bottle of liquid bubble bath of the tray, and headed back into the bathroom leaving the door open.  
  
Richie caught her look as she stuffed an orange slice in between her lips and settled on the bed close to her side. " He's been frantic since you passed out."  
  
She rolled her eye's heavenward and sipped her juice. "He has been frantic and depressed since he was told I was dead."   
  
Richie froze giving her a look.  
  
She pushed the tray away, suddenly not too hungry anymore. "I remember everything Richie. I already told Seth when I first came to." She frowned wrapping the sheet around herself as she got up slowly heading towards the bathroom, aware of the ache cascading through her once again. "I remember it all, every soul I touched, every life I took."  
  
***  
  
Seth sat on the step at the side of what she knew was a deep inset garden tub pouring the bottle of strong scented vanilla berry bubbly into the stream of water now that it was filled about a third of the way. He turned to look at her as she felt Richie come right up behind her his palm placed at the center of her spine pushing her encouragingly to the rapidly foaming tub.  
  
Kate watched as Seth capped the bottle and turned to stare at them resigned, his fingers capturing a good bit of the soft cotton sheet as she came close before tugging it away from her. Richie's palm pressed against naked flesh now as he gently led her up into the tub taking his place by Seth's side on the step to watch her and listen.  
  
For a while she just watched them as she got comfortable stretching out sore muscles. Noticing the once bespectacled brother was wearing a soft white T-shirt and sweats, just as she noticed the itch of her stitched wrists and sting of cuts and scrapes, hissing in discomfort before sighing as the heated water soothed her. She continued to stare harder when Richie slipped his hand under the bubbly foam and let his hand shift to and fro, nodding to get Seth to turn off the tap.  
  
She took the initiative of sitting up and getting ready to speak, letting her water drenched hair cling to her breasts, admiring the heat shooting from both men as they watched.  
  
"I don't really know where to start."  
  
Seth shrugged, slipping down off the steps onto the floor, letting his head rest on the sill turned to her with dark passion filled orbs. "Just say what you need to."  
  
"I belong to both of you." She blurted out quickly as hazel irises glistened pale green. "I know that because its how she used me. She tortured me with the thing she knew. Hero twins-the ones who would trick the gods, and me-the one they would come for."   
  
Richie interrupted. "We did."  
  
"No, I mean the you, you were before now. The god you descended from, he was hated for his power. In a way I guess I was both lover and mother."  
  
Seth watched as Kate took Richie's wandering hand and held it with both of hers as she laid back again and continued.  
  
" I don't know everything, she only told me things that would hurt, but I know it's true. It just feels right." She stared as tears filled her eyes. "The way she told it, it was the main gods who favored them, both Ixbalanque and Hun-Apu, the rest hated them and tried to kill them continuously. It got twisted somewhere in the retelling because she was angry as she saw what our world thought of them."   
  
She pulled Richie's hand closer pressing it between her breasts to feel her heart as she let a few tears fall. Seth turned slumping against the side of the tub letting his hands slip into the water one caressing her calf as the other settled at her hip, thumb sliding across her hand as she let one go of Richie to reach for him too.  
  
"Apparently the father of the twins and their uncle were being cursed unaware and steadily going crazy. He loved Ix Chel, the moon and earth goddess, but it was tainted by the curses, to the point of cruelty that stemmed from jealousy. She ran away from him when it got bad, and hid for awhile until he needed her and she came back. But I guess it hit him all at once and she left him forever to hide in the moon rays."  
  
Seth spoke up. "Sweetheart, what's this got to do with us?"  
  
Kate sighed gripping his hand and pulling it across her stomach closer to Richie. "Just listen. When she heard he had died she went back to the gods and begged, eventually she spoke to his corpse, and agreed to mother for him. She was named the Virgin Blood Moon at that time because the twins were conceived without consummation. After she birthed them she left again never to return, or so Amaru said. The twins grew into the torture and cruelty they received from what was suppose to be family and began using tricks to get what the wanted. When they were grown and had finally managed to anger the lesser gods they were killed and separated, though at different times. When the boys showed powers those gods had no clue of, bringing each other back to life and using similar powers to destroy others easily, they tempted the gods into one last battle. In the end they won killing the them, and cutting them of from our world for all time. Before leaving that realm for ours they brought their father back who stayed there to live with all his guilt. That named him as the one to pray to when one sought hope."  
  
Kate stood from the cooling water, bubbles sliding down her body as she stepped between the brothers with no shame in order to grab the thick towel Seth had placed on the counter to dry herself. "When they climbed up from Xibalba they continued on up, Hun-Apu as the morning star, and Ixbalanque as the full moon, so they could watch the world and protect it from the cruel gods who still saw amusement in them."  
  
Seth stood watching her. "So, I'm this Hun-Apu guy and Richie is Ixbalanque, where do you fit in then, princess?"  
  
"I was Ix Chel and the Virgin Blood Moon. You guys are to halves of the same soul. It’s why you hate being apart but also why you fight. Your father wasn't your father, not really, he just split his soul in two, twisted as it was from the curses, hoping at least one would be strong enough to revive him in the form of the other. Amaru said when I left you, as we once were, I was angry for what I had to do, live and hide and love someone so much I'd sacrifice not only my body and mind but my purity as well, birth beings that would never be whole again, and know the twisted love that the world wouldn't understand. She said I begged her to help me forget."  
  
When Seth noticed her shivering as her tears fell he picked her up carrying her to his bed once again. He sat right next to her hip as he heard Richie searching his closet watching her try and pull herself together.  
  
As Richie emerged with a long sleeved black cotton shirt he unraveled the towel from around her and let his brother dress her tossing the towel to the ground. Meeting his brothers eye they both pulled back the covers and slid under tucking Kate between them where she would be safe.  
  
They took turns getting comfortable, Richie pulling Kate to face him, hitching her thigh over his hip, Kate shifting closer while pulling Seth's arm around her waist as he shifted to pin her prostrate leg with his own.

It was Richie who asked after a few minutes of calm had passed. "What did she do, Kate?" 

"She split me apart, too."


End file.
